During his Tuesday morning speech, I found it amusing that Obama called McCain to task for "using the oldest trick in the political book" in calling for a 'Commission' to examine the current economic crisis. No less than five minutes later Obama then called for an "Advisory Group" to meet with the president regarding the current economic scenario.

You say tomato, I say tomahto.

For those who do not know, "billionaire business mogul" Penny Pritzker was named in January 2007 as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)'s national finance chairman. She was also on the finance committee for Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate. In August 2001, Penny, Thomas, and Nicholas Pritzker were described as "struggling with a complicated legacy"—"a vast real estate and Hyatt hotel empire"—left to them by its founder, Jay Pritzker, the New York Times reported. In 2005, Forbes counted Penny Pritzer among The 100 Most Powerful Women, as well as a member of the Forbes 400.

The New York Times reported December 11, 2001, that the Pritzkers had agreed to pay a "record $460 million" spread out over 15 years to the federal government to avoid being punished" for Superior Bank's failure. It was "the largest settlement ever in the failure of a banking institution. The failure itself is one of the largest in the last decade, one that some estimate could cost the government up to $1 billion."

"Regulators said Superior had collapsed because of poor lending practices and sloppy bookkeeping," Time wrote. "The bank specialized in loans to people with poor credit histories, a practice called subprime lending."

Time also reported that the Pritzkers, who "have a long and troubled history in the S.& L. business" and "once battled the Internal Revenue Service over estate taxes, … also agreed to cede 90 percent of any money they might recover in separate litigation with the government."

If Mr. Obama is beholden to taxpayer-funded, government-designed highway and energy pork projects, he has gone hog wild over "refundable tax credits," which is the polite description of taxpayer-financed cash payments to people who pay no income taxes. Mr. Obama promises a $4,000 refundable tax credit to finance college tuition for students who spend 100 hours performing community service. There will be a refundable 10 percent mortgage-interest tax credit for married couples who take the $10,900 standard deduction because their itemizable deductions (including mortgage interest) fall below that level. Couples will also receive a refundable $1,000 tax credit to offset payroll taxes even if their refundable earned-income tax credit (EITC) has already eliminated their payroll-tax burden. Taxpayers will also finance a $500 refundable tax credit to augment a $1,000 savings-account deposit made by families earning up to $75,000.


Mr. Obama also promises to "triple the [EITC] benefit for minimum-wage workers." Let's do the math. For a married couple with two children working full-time and earning the minimum wage ($5.85 per hour, $24,336 per year), their refundable EITC would rise from $3,225 to $9,675. They already qualify for refundable child tax credits totaling about $1,850. Mr. Obama would increase their refundable child-care tax credit to $3,000. Don't forget his refundable $1,000 tax credit to partly offset their $1,500 Social Security taxes, which had already been more than offset by their nearly $10,000 refundable EITC. If they put that $1,000 in the bank, they would get another refundable tax credit of $500.

 

Oink Oink:  On the spending side of the ledger, Mr. Obama proposed a 10-year, $60 billion "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank," which is a highfalutin name for a scheme to fund dubious pork-barrel projects that can't pass muster in our pork-addicted Congress. The $60 billion is just a down payment; it will be used to leverage "almost half a trillion of additional infrastructure spending." Guess who's going to pay for all that. Not to worry because the whole scheme will "generate nearly 2 million new jobs." Mr. Obama has also proposed a 10-year, $150 billion program "to establish a green energy sector that will create up to 5 million new jobs." His nearly universal health care plan, which he implausibly asserts will reduce the average family's insurance premium by $2,500 per year, is projected to cost between $50 billion and $65 billion per year.

updates pending ....

Those attacks on Palin ....

The Lying King ...

Commission vs Advisory Council:  Today, Senator Obama said: "Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book: you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here's the thing: this isn't 9-11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out."

Apparently, then, we can dismiss Senator Obama's call for commissions on Social Security (11/2007), torture (9/2007), war crimes (8/2008), and financial oversight for Wall Street (4/2008) as "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."

Voting Record

Well ... errrr ... uhhhh .... hey ... uhhh .... well ... I-I-I-I ... well ....

BUDGET & TAXES:

Voted to raise the minimum wage in Illinois from $5.15 an hour to $6.50 an hour over two years. (2003)

Helped pass a 5 percent earned-income tax credit for low-income working families in 2000; made the credit permanent in 2003.

Voted to end $300 million worth of tax breaks for businesses. (2004)

Voted against making permanent the repeal of the state's 5 percent sales tax on gasoline. (2000)

HEALTH CARE:

Voted for having Illinois endorse embryonic stem cell research. (2004)

Successfully sponsored the Health Care Justice Act, a study of ways to implement a universal health care system statewide. (2004)

Voted against restrictions on public funding of abortion. (2000)

Successfully co-sponsored a prescription drug discount buying club program for seniors and the disabled. (2003)

CRIME & GUN CONTROL:

Voted against letting people argue self-defense in court if charged with violating local weapons bans by using a gun in their home. (2004)

Voted to let retired police and military police carry concealed weapons. (2004)

Successfully sponsored requirement that law enforcement videotape interrogations of suspects in some serious crimes. (2003)

Successfully sponsored law enforcement study of the race of people pulled over for traffic tickets. (2003)

Helped pass an overhaul of the state's troubled death penalty system. (2003)

Unsuccessfully sponsored measure to expunge some criminal records and create an employment grant program for ex-criminals. (2002)

Unsuccessfully sponsored limit of one handgun purchase per month. (2000)

Voted against making gang members eligible for the death penalty if they kill someone to help their gang. (2001)

MISCELLANEOUS:

Unsuccessfully co-sponsored ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The measure became law after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate. (2003)

Successfully sponsored move to shield Illinois workers from federal rules that threatened overtime pay for some employees.

Successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform called the Gift Ban Act. (1998)

Voted against giving tax credits to parents who send their children to private school. (1999)

Zbigniew Brzezinski is an advocate of socialist world government, a goal he has promoted as a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and as a speaker at former Soviet Premier and Communist Mikhail Gorbachev's first World Forum. Brzezinski is an architect of creating regions of global governance from independent nations to achieve world government. At the World Forum Brzezenski described the global regions that are now being put into place under Condi Rice: Israel and the Palestinians (now MEFTA, Middle East Free Trade Association), Iran as part of a Central Asian region, and China as part of a Far Eastern region. As a member of CSIS Brzezinski has guided their efforts to publish the North American Integration Monitor (2002) that calls for the loss of US sovereignty to a North American Union (NAU) as one of the regional global government blocks.

The proposals for global taxes by Obama have come with the recommendations of Zbigniew Brzezinski to pay for globalization and world government. Obama has proposed a global poverty tax in a US Senate bill. The Climate Change Control Bill strongly supported by Obama calls for an international governing regime to monitor and regulate carbon dioxide and "carbon footprints" from discovery, to production, to consumption at a cost of $50 trillion globally and at a cost of $8 trillion for US taxpayers, all to be paid for by a global tax, whose monies will be used to establish a world government body.

To hear Obama describe his policy in a stump speech, it's difficult to realize that his economic and energy policies are little more than conduits to his view of "one world order" -- a socialistic governance similar to the EU .....

If there is a mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father, one thing is not left a mystery, the fact that Barack Obama organized his life on the ideals given to him by his Kenyan father. 

Obama tells us, "All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own." (p. 220)  

 

And what was that image?  It was "the father of my dreams, the man in

my mother's stories, full of high-blown ideals .." (p. 278) 

 

What is more, Obama tells us that, "It was into my father's image .. that

I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." 

 

And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing. (p. 230)

Barack Obama's father, a Harvard trained economist, attacked the economic proposals of pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya from the socialist left, siding with communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga, in a paper Barack Obama's father worte for the East Africa Journal. 

 

As Odhiambo and Cohen write, "The debates [over economic policy] pitted .. Mboya against .. Oginga Odinga and radical economists Dharam Ghai and Barrack Obama, who critiqued the document for being neither African nor socialist enough."

1.  Obama advocated the communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land, as part of a forced "development plan", an important element of his attack on the government's advocacy of private ownership, land titles, and property registration. (p. 29)

 

2.  Obama advocated the nationalization of "European" and "Asian" owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the "indigenous" black population. (pp. 32 -33)

 

3.  Obama advocated dramatically increasing taxation on "the rich" even up to the 100% level, arguing that, "there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay" (p. 30) and that, "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed." (p. 31)

 

4.  Obama contrasted the ill-defined and weak-tea notion of "African Socialism" negatively with the well-defined ideology of "scientific socialism", i.e. communism.  Obama views "African Socialism" pioneers like Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Toure as having diverted only "a little" from the capitalist system. (p. 26)

 

5.  Obama advocated an "active" rather than a "passive" program to achieve a classless society through the removal of economic disparities between black Africans and Asian and Europeans. (p. 28)  "While we welcome the idea of a prevention [of class problems], we should try to cure what has slipped in .. we .. need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now .. so long as we maintain free enterprise one cannot deny that some will accumulate more than others .. "  (pp. 29-30)

 

6.  Obama advocated price controls on hotels and the tourist industry, so that the middle class and not only the rich can afford to come to Kenya as tourists.  (p. 33)

 

7.  Obama advocated government owned and operated "model farms" as a means of teaching modern farming techniques to farmers.  (p. 33)

 

8.  Obama strongly supported the governments assertion of a "non-aligned" status in the contest between Western nations and communist nations aligned with the Soviet Union and China.  (p. 26)

If there is a mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father, one thing is not left a mystery, the fact that Barack Obama organized his life on the ideals given to him by his Kenyan father. 

Obama tells us, "All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own." (p. 220)  

 

And what was that image?  It was "the father of my dreams, the man in

my mother's stories, full of high-blown ideals .." (p. 278) 

 

What is more, Obama tells us that, "It was into my father's image .. that

I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." 

 

And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing. (p. 230)

Barack Obama's father, a Harvard trained economist, attacked the economic proposals of pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya from the socialist left, siding with communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga, in a paper Barack Obama's father worte for the East Africa Journal. 

 

As Odhiambo and Cohen write, "The debates [over economic policy] pitted .. Mboya against .. Oginga Odinga and radical economists Dharam Ghai and Barrack Obama, who critiqued the document for being neither African nor socialist enough."

1.  Obama advocated the communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land, as part of a forced "development plan", an important element of his attack on the government's advocacy of private ownership, land titles, and property registration. (p. 29)

 

2.  Obama advocated the nationalization of "European" and "Asian" owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the "indigenous" black population. (pp. 32 -33)

 

3.  Obama advocated dramatically increasing taxation on "the rich" even up to the 100% level, arguing that, "there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay" (p. 30) and that, "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed." (p. 31)

 

4.  Obama contrasted the ill-defined and weak-tea notion of "African Socialism" negatively with the well-defined ideology of "scientific socialism", i.e. communism.  Obama views "African Socialism" pioneers like Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Toure as having diverted only "a little" from the capitalist system. (p. 26)

 

5.  Obama advocated an "active" rather than a "passive" program to achieve a classless society through the removal of economic disparities between black Africans and Asian and Europeans. (p. 28)  "While we welcome the idea of a prevention [of class problems], we should try to cure what has slipped in .. we .. need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now .. so long as we maintain free enterprise one cannot deny that some will accumulate more than others .. "  (pp. 29-30)

 

6.  Obama advocated price controls on hotels and the tourist industry, so that the middle class and not only the rich can afford to come to Kenya as tourists.  (p. 33)

 

7.  Obama advocated government owned and operated "model farms" as a means of teaching modern farming techniques to farmers.  (p. 33)

 

8.  Obama strongly supported the governments assertion of a "non-aligned" status in the contest between Western nations and communist nations aligned with the Soviet Union and China.  (p. 26)

Zbigniew Brzezinski is an advocate of socialist world government, a goal he has promoted as a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and as a speaker at former Soviet Premier and Communist Mikhail Gorbachev's first World Forum. Brzezinski is an architect of creating regions of global governance from independent nations to achieve world government. At the World Forum Brzezenski described the global regions that are now being put into place under Condi Rice: Israel and the Palestinians (now MEFTA, Middle East Free Trade Association), Iran as part of a Central Asian region, and China as part of a Far Eastern region. As a member of CSIS Brzezinski has guided their efforts to publish the North American Integration Monitor (2002) that calls for the loss of US sovereignty to a North American Union (NAU) as one of the regional global government blocks.

The proposals for global taxes by Obama have come with the recommendations of Zbigniew Brzezinski to pay for globalization and world government. Obama has proposed a global poverty tax in a US Senate bill. The Climate Change Control Bill strongly supported by Obama calls for an international governing regime to monitor and regulate carbon dioxide and "carbon footprints" from discovery, to production, to consumption at a cost of $50 trillion globally and at a cost of $8 trillion for US taxpayers, all to be paid for by a global tax, whose monies will be used to establish a world government body.

To hear Obama describe his policy in a stump speech, it's difficult to realize that his economic and energy policies are little more than conduits to his view of "one world order" -- a socialistic governance similar to the EU .....

BUDGET & TAXES:

Voted to raise the minimum wage in Illinois from $5.15 an hour to $6.50 an hour over two years. (2003)

Helped pass a 5 percent earned-income tax credit for low-income working families in 2000; made the credit permanent in 2003.

Voted to end $300 million worth of tax breaks for businesses. (2004)

Voted against making permanent the repeal of the state's 5 percent sales tax on gasoline. (2000)

HEALTH CARE:

Voted for having Illinois endorse embryonic stem cell research. (2004)

Successfully sponsored the Health Care Justice Act, a study of ways to implement a universal health care system statewide. (2004)

Voted against restrictions on public funding of abortion. (2000)

Successfully co-sponsored a prescription drug discount buying club program for seniors and the disabled. (2003)

CRIME & GUN CONTROL:

Voted against letting people argue self-defense in court if charged with violating local weapons bans by using a gun in their home. (2004)

Voted to let retired police and military police carry concealed weapons. (2004)

Successfully sponsored requirement that law enforcement videotape interrogations of suspects in some serious crimes. (2003)

Successfully sponsored law enforcement study of the race of people pulled over for traffic tickets. (2003)

Helped pass an overhaul of the state's troubled death penalty system. (2003)

Unsuccessfully sponsored measure to expunge some criminal records and create an employment grant program for ex-criminals. (2002)

Unsuccessfully sponsored limit of one handgun purchase per month. (2000)

Voted against making gang members eligible for the death penalty if they kill someone to help their gang. (2001)

MISCELLANEOUS:

Unsuccessfully co-sponsored ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The measure became law after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate. (2003)

Successfully sponsored move to shield Illinois workers from federal rules that threatened overtime pay for some employees.

Successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform called the Gift Ban Act. (1998)

Voted against giving tax credits to parents who send their children to private school. (1999)

Voting Record

Ethics Bill: Obama didn't write it, introduce it, change it, or create it.   It took just 14 days from start to finish and was passed unanimously.

Obama's Nuclear Bill was rejected by his own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation - influenced by his Nuclear donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod (his campaign manager) came.

Commission vs Advisory Council:  Today, Senator Obama said: "Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book: you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here's the thing: this isn't 9-11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out."

Apparently, then, we can dismiss Senator Obama's call for commissions on Social Security (11/2007), torture (9/2007), war crimes (8/2008), and financial oversight for Wall Street (4/2008) as "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."

During his Tuesday morning speech, I found it amusing that Obama called McCain to task for "using the oldest trick in the political book" in calling for a 'Commission' to examine the current economic crisis. No less than five minutes later Obama then called for an "Advisory Group" to meet with the president regarding the current economic scenario.

You say tomato, I say tomahto.

For those who do not know, "billionaire business mogul" Penny Pritzker was named in January 2007 as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)'s national finance chairman. She was also on the finance committee for Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate. In August 2001, Penny, Thomas, and Nicholas Pritzker were described as "struggling with a complicated legacy"—"a vast real estate and Hyatt hotel empire"—left to them by its founder, Jay Pritzker, the New York Times reported. In 2005, Forbes counted Penny Pritzer among The 100 Most Powerful Women, as well as a member of the Forbes 400.

The New York Times reported December 11, 2001, that the Pritzkers had agreed to pay a "record $460 million" spread out over 15 years to the federal government to avoid being punished" for Superior Bank's failure. It was "the largest settlement ever in the failure of a banking institution. The failure itself is one of the largest in the last decade, one that some estimate could cost the government up to $1 billion."

"Regulators said Superior had collapsed because of poor lending practices and sloppy bookkeeping," Time wrote. "The bank specialized in loans to people with poor credit histories, a practice called subprime lending."

Time also reported that the Pritzkers, who "have a long and troubled history in the S.& L. business" and "once battled the Internal Revenue Service over estate taxes, … also agreed to cede 90 percent of any money they might recover in separate litigation with the government."

If Mr. Obama is beholden to taxpayer-funded, government-designed highway and energy pork projects, he has gone hog wild over "refundable tax credits," which is the polite description of taxpayer-financed cash payments to people who pay no income taxes. Mr. Obama promises a $4,000 refundable tax credit to finance college tuition for students who spend 100 hours performing community service. There will be a refundable 10 percent mortgage-interest tax credit for married couples who take the $10,900 standard deduction because their itemizable deductions (including mortgage interest) fall below that level. Couples will also receive a refundable $1,000 tax credit to offset payroll taxes even if their refundable earned-income tax credit (EITC) has already eliminated their payroll-tax burden. Taxpayers will also finance a $500 refundable tax credit to augment a $1,000 savings-account deposit made by families earning up to $75,000.


Mr. Obama also promises to "triple the [EITC] benefit for minimum-wage workers." Let's do the math. For a married couple with two children working full-time and earning the minimum wage ($5.85 per hour, $24,336 per year), their refundable EITC would rise from $3,225 to $9,675. They already qualify for refundable child tax credits totaling about $1,850. Mr. Obama would increase their refundable child-care tax credit to $3,000. Don't forget his refundable $1,000 tax credit to partly offset their $1,500 Social Security taxes, which had already been more than offset by their nearly $10,000 refundable EITC. If they put that $1,000 in the bank, they would get another refundable tax credit of $500.

 

Oink Oink:  On the spending side of the ledger, Mr. Obama proposed a 10-year, $60 billion "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank," which is a highfalutin name for a scheme to fund dubious pork-barrel projects that can't pass muster in our pork-addicted Congress. The $60 billion is just a down payment; it will be used to leverage "almost half a trillion of additional infrastructure spending." Guess who's going to pay for all that. Not to worry because the whole scheme will "generate nearly 2 million new jobs." Mr. Obama has also proposed a 10-year, $150 billion program "to establish a green energy sector that will create up to 5 million new jobs." His nearly universal health care plan, which he implausibly asserts will reduce the average family's insurance premium by $2,500 per year, is projected to cost between $50 billion and $65 billion per year.

You'll hear him talk about businesses, companies, and corporations. You'll hear him talk about how business must work smarter, and must reduce their emissions. What you won't hear him say is that the largest part of US greenhouse gas emissions come from you and me driving to and from work, and keeping our homes cool. Because if he said that, the whole 83% reduction thing would begin to strike too closely to home.

So he distracts us from it. He says he will take money from the corporations, then use some of it (15 billion) to advance energy policy ( more about that soon) and give the rest to us. The problem with that plan is twofold. First, any money he pulls from corporations will be replaced by money they pull from us. If you make it more expensive for a company to manufacture and provide a product, they will charge more for it. That's simple math. The second problem is that he wants to basically bribe us with our own money. It goes from us, through the corporations, to the Federal government through the emissions auction and back to us.

"... it's embarrassing to have a candidate for President (A) not understand a problem, (B) gloat over its arrival, and (C) not know how to fix it."  source

"...Obama's ads and stump speeches attack McCain and Republican policies for the current financial turmoil. It is demonstrably not Republican policy and worse, it appears the man attacking McCain, Senator Obama, was at the head of the line when the piggies lined up at the Fannie and Freddie trough for campaign bucks. Senator Barack Obama, number two on the Fannie/Freddie list of favored politicians after just four short years in the Senate. Next time you see that ad, you might notice he fails to mention that part of the Fannie and Freddie problem."

"[T]he bill's intention was to mandate sex education, especially concerning contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases, for children before the sixth grade and as early as kindergarten. Obama's defenders may howl, but the bill is what it is."

"The bottom line is this. If you've got a rifle, you've got a shotgun, you've got a gun in your house, I'm not taking it away. Alright? So they can keep on talking about it but this is just not true. And by the way, here's another thing you've got to understand. Even if I wanted to take it away, I couldn't get it done. I don't have the votes in Congress."

The idea that Second Amendment rights depend on Congressional inaction due to a lack of votes is the give-away here.  First Amendment rights cannot be curtailed by Congressional Action.  Fourth Amendment rights are not subject to majority vote.  Gun owners and and originalists wonder why Obama is conceding that majorities in House and Senate can take guns away.

Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, [a staff spokeswoman said.  In the face of resistance from Bush, the Democrat has long said that any such agreement must be reviewed by the US Congress as it would tie a future administration's hands on Iraq.  Source

In a Chicago speech after 9/11, he described the terrorists as "lacking empathy ... who came from a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair" .... Obama wqs wrong in this assessment: the terrorists came from wealthy, educated backgrounds -- similar to that of his American terrorist friend Bill Ayers.  

Another Obama associate, el Hadi (sp?), was stopped by the Federal Government from collecting and sending donations to the terrorist group Hamas ... he is currently raising money for Obama and lists Michelle Obama as a supporter.

Questionable Associates

There are several individuals in Obama's background he refuses to acknowledge or discuss ....

From The Corner, in responding to Obama's ad about McCain not being able to send email ....

The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

In a similar vein I guess it's an outrage [to Obama, at least] that the blind governor of New York David Patterson doesn't know how to drive a car. After all, transportation issues are pretty important. How dare he serve as governor while being ignorant of what it's like to navigate New York's highways.

Here's the Obama ad:  (wonder how long it will be before they take it down?)

Knock the elderly and now the disabled -- and a disabled vet, at that?  Not good, Oblahma .... not good.

This post will remain at the top for a while, simply to measure the impact that Sarah Palin is making on the political scene...

updated 4:12 pm ET

update 4:38 pm ET

MUST SEE .... profane and hilarious .... Video from the vaults of Obama

----------------------

As a senior citizen who uses email (that's another insult to us older folks, Oblahma) and who writes approximately 12 blogs, let me add my 65-cents worth ....

Not only am I tired of Oblahma's new theme song, "Daze of Whine and Poses" --- I was highly offended by his reference to "old fish" (the second metaphor behind the lipstick smear).  My offense was that fish is a derogatory term for women AND Oblahma was referring to the elder-statesman Sen. McCain.

"Enough" Oblahma cries?  He ain't seen nuttin' yet!  And it won't be delivered by email, but by the ballot box.

---------------------

Insight from Australia (even): 

Sarah Palin has given her first interview since being picked as the Republican's vice-presidential candidate. The media has scrabbled for evidence of fumbles, and evidence that a shootin', cussin' redneck is about to plunge the world into war.

And away they go. From the Toronto Globe and Mail:

Shooting from the hip on foreign policy, Palin raises spectre of war with Russia

Indeed, 3AW's Neil Mitchell this morning scoffed that a President Palin would have already started "four wars", to judge by the interview.

Really? Let's check.

The first war a President Palin would allegedly start was with Pakistan, by invading it in the hunt for terrorists, and perhaps from the transcript you might agree the words are indeed naive and alarming:

We should start with the premise that the United States, like all sovereign nations, has the unilateral right to defend itself against attack. As such, our campaign to take out Al Qaeda base camps and the Taliban regime that harbored them was entirely justified… (I)f we've got (Osama bin Laden) in our sites, we should ask for Pakistan's cooperation, we should ask Pakistan to take him out. But if they don't, we shouldn't need permission to go after folks that killed 3,000 Americans.

Oops, sorry. That was actually Barack Obama. This is Palin:

ABC News Anchor Gibson also asked Palin several times whether or not U.S. forces have the right to make cross-border attacks into Pakistan with or without the approval of the Pakistani government…

"In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists, who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink..."

The other war a President Palin would start, according to Mitchell, was with Russia over Georgia (should Georgia be a NATO member, which it isn't). Again, the transcript might sound alarming:

I would also argue that we have the right to take unilateral military action to eliminate an imminent threat to our security— so long as an imminent threat is understood to be a nation, group, or individual that is actively preparing to strike U.S. targets (or allies with which the United States has mutual defense agreements)...

And those allies should include Georgia:

I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO...

Oops. Again, that's Obama. Here is Palin:

Asked whether the United States would have to go to war with Russia if it invaded Georgia, and the country was part of NATO, Palin said: "Perhaps so."

"I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she said.

Pressed on the question, Palin responded: "What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against ... We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to."

War three, fretted Mitchell, would be one with Iran, now seeking nuclear weapons, according to most assessments. Go to the scary transcript:

(T)he global community should offer "big sticks and big carrots" to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear programme.

"A nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat and the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon..."

Damn, that's Obama again. Here is Palin:

PALIN: No, no. I agree with John McCain that nuclear weapons in the hands of those who would seek to destroy our allies, in this case, we're talking about Israel, we're talking about Ahmadinejad's comment about Israel being the "stinking corpse, should be wiped off the face of the earth," that's atrocious. That's unacceptable.

GIBSON: So what do you do about a nuclear Iran?

PALIN: We have got to make sure that these weapons of mass destruction, that nuclear weapons are not given to those hands of Ahmadinejad, not that he would use them, but that he would allow terrorists to be able to use them. So we have got to put the pressure on Iran and we have got to count on our allies to help us, diplomatic pressure.

And the fourth war? Over Israel. To the transcript:

I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel.

You guessed it. Obama again. Here is Palin:

GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

PALIN: Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.

If Mitchell is alarmed by Palin, running for vice president, he should be terrified by Obama, running for president. Either that, or he should accept that nothing Palin said was particularly bellicose, extreme or unreasonable. He's just fallen for the Palin=redneck spin of the Left.

In fact, when you read the transcript of Palin's discussion with reporter Charlie Gibson on foreign affairs, you realise how the gotcha cherry-picking of quotes from it, and the spin given to it, completely misrepresents Palin's general ease with the subject. The Left dreamed of her making a fool of herself - "er, who's Putin?" - but she most certainly did not.

--------------------------

Sarah Palin would disagree with Judy Woodruff, as does Clarice. 

When it comes to the demographics of the U.S. military, conventional wisdom alleges the armed forces are a magnet for poorly educated and disadvantaged minorities who enter the service because they lack better options. However, a new Heritage Foundation report debunks those assumptions. According to the study's findings, 95 percent of military officers earned at least a bachelor's degree and more than 98 percent of enlisted members have obtained a high-school degree—numbers far greater than their civilian peers. The report also found that minorities are not overrepresented in the military, with officers and enlisted troops more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In addition, the data revealed that states with a high recruit-to-population ratio tend to be more conservative politically than states with a low recruit-to-population ratio. Among so-called red states are 23 states with a high military concentration ratio, while only six blue states have a high ratio."

 

I been thinking ..... (which can be dangerous):

Obama really is a man of faith:  he's asking us to have faith that he can do more than his resume reflects and that we have faith that John McCain won't.

Eight days after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Obama -- the man who would be Commander in Chief  -- blamed the terrorist attacks on "a failure of empathy."

The July 20 issue of the New Yorker magazine got a lot of attention for its cover, which carried a "satirical" cartoon depicting Michelle and Barack Obama that Obama supporters found tasteless and offensive. Buried inside that issue's feature story, however, was a reaction by Obama to 9/11 that all voters should find even more tasteless and offensive.

The article reprised a piece published in Chicago's Hyde Park Herald on Sept. 19, 2001, and written by a then-unknown and otherwise undistinguished state senator from Illinois. The senator, a former community organizer, wrote that after tightening security at our airports and repairing our intelligence networks, we "must also engage . . . in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness."

According to Barack Obama, the madness that drove terrorists to turn passenger jets into manned cruise missiles aimed at our centers of finance, government and military power "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."

As if the answer to the attacks should have been food stamps for al-Qaida.

Sen. Obama advised caution and warned of overreacting. "We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad," he wrote. "We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent."

We should also be just as concerned, he felt, with American anger and bigotry as we were about al-Qaida.

In an opinion piece in Commentary magazine, writer Abe Greenwald commented on Obama's belief that the 9/11 attacks were rooted in poverty and despair. "Strange," he called it, "considering our attackers were wealthy and educated, connected and ecstatic."

As Greenwald put it, Obama "could have asked (terrorist and colleague) Bill Ayers, 'Bill, did your 'failure of empathy' stem from your impoverished upbringing as the son of the CEO of Commonwealth Edison?" Did poverty and despair also cause the Weather Underground member and host of Obama's first fundraiser to bomb government buildings?

Fact is, the roster of terrorists and their handlers reads like a list of of Ivy Leaguers:

Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi billionaire, studied engineering. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, architect of 9/11 and other major attacks, has a degree in mechanical engineering. Mohammed Atta, who flew a jet into the World Trade Center, is the son of a lawyer and earned a master's degree in urban planning at Hamburg University. Ayman al-Zawahri is an eye surgeon. Seven doctors were involved in the London-Glasgow bomb plots.

You get the idea, even if Barack Obama doesn't.

In a speech before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 20, 2001, President Bush pointed out the real reasons Islamofascists hate us: "They hate what they see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

Bush aptly called the 9/11 terrorists and their ilk "the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century."

"By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism," he said.

Knowing the nature of your enemy is the key to victory. On the seventh anniversary of 9/11, we should all thank President Bush for keeping America safe. Along the way, he brought freedom and democracy to the Middle East, draining the terrorist swamp.

Bush gets it. So does John McCain. This is one thing we shouldn't want to change.

I have no idea how Obama's comments have failed to resonate with the American people.  Hopefully, those words will now resonate before it's too late.

----------------------------

On September 11, 2006
I honored the memory of
Lynn C. Goodchild
May each of the 2,996 victims rest in peace ....